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Posts Tagged ‘Charity’

I’ve been meaning to write about FrontlineSMS for a little while now, ever since TechnoKitten pointed it out to me. However, it’s one of those services that almost defies being written about – because it’s just so good. Once you’ve wriiten – ‘it’s amazing’ – what more is there to say?

I suppose I could start with a bit more of an explanation – it is software that creates an SMS delivery tool for you so that you can send out multiple SMSs to people out and about. It’s been specifically created for charities and NGOs, so the people that receive the messages would typically be people in the field, working at the cutting edge of the charity’s good work, but without access to a computer (and therefore email), but of course with a mobile phone.

What’s great about it is that it makes this form of communication a completely mass-market medium. People, volunteers, local support workers, activitists etc etc, they all have a mobile phone and they all know how to use SMS. So by using FrontlineSMS you are able to keep them updated, warn them, mobilise them – whatever it is you need to do.

FrontlineSMS is currently being put to use in almost every corner of the world. Here’s a map they’ve created of where and how it being used.

If you are from a charity or NGO, I suggest that you go here and download it for free.

We recently gave you some options from Nuance if you wanted to send some money to a charity by text. Well London’s Air Ambulance service has now launched a scheme. I got this story from Brand Republic.

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London’s Air Ambulance has introduced a text-to-donate scheme to increase donations.

The text-to-donate service, hosted by Oxygen8 Communications, operates on a short-code platform. To make a donation, supporters send an SMS to the code LA81. This generates a one off donation taken from the cost of the text message.

Andrew Cameron, chief executive of London’s Air Ambulance said: “Although we are partly funded by the NHS and Virgin, the majority of our costs are covered through public donations, charity fundraising events and collection schemes. We hope that the new text-to-donate service will provide another method in which people can easily and quickly donate a small but important amount of money to London’s Air Ambulance”.

Messages are charged at £1.50 per text, of which 90p goes to the London’s Air Ambulance, with the remainder going to the mobile network the message was sent from.

Also, perhaps we should get in touch with the operators to ask them why they are taking 60p from each text for this service. I accept there might be some costs, but when most operators are giving away bundles of hundreds of texts per month the costs for this can’t be that high can they?

Nuance, the company behind T9 text input, has provided some ideas for you if you’d like to give some money to charity this Xmas. There are a number of charities that use text messaging as a way to raise money, here are some examples of how you can give:

To make a one-off donation to Sight Savers, simply text the words “SIGHT ONCE” to the number 87070. For each text, your network provider will charge £1.50 to your next bill. From this charge, Sight Savers will be given £1 to help support its work in the developing world.

Breast Cancer Care

Text “PINK” to 83338 to download your very own pink ribbon and make a valuable £1.50 donation to Breast Cancer Care, plus the usual cost of a text message.

Mobile Industry Review is running a great campaign for Christmas. For a small donation, you can win some great mobile gadgets.

The guys at MIR are regularly receiving stuff to review and play around with. If they get the chance to keep hold of it then they try to give it away to readers. This is a collection of some of the stuff they have ‘collected’ over the last few weeks.